Alan8325

The only Syrian units that approach the coalition units in terms of technical capability, not considering experience and motivation factors, are the special forces and airborne units. The closest armour is the T-90, used by the Republican Guard under "excellent" equipment settings in CMSF. The most balanced scenarios would be those that use these units and limit the coalition side to lighter/less experienced and motivated units and limit artillery and air support. Also, MOUT scenarios even the playing field a little more than scenarios with more open space. I haven't played H2H so I don't know exactly which ones are balanced though. Of course, to play scenarios with Syrian Airborne or T-90's you would have to have the Marines module.

From "Trial by Fire" in the Dutch campaign. Good mission to give everyone Panzerfausts!

I'm not sure exactly where along that graphical representation of the round it actually is, but the path is probably correct. I suppose it could have stopped at the turret but the graphic ended up in that position. I'm not sure though.

I've seen plenty of instances of vehicles taking odd paths, especially if they are attempting to get around another unit. Moving multiple units at the same time, crossing paths, in WEGO is a nightmare for me but I'm primarily a RT player. Once units start to do crazy things I pause the game and fix it with new orders. Also, yes I remember now that in WEGO the selectable units limitation of Iron mode does not occur during the orders phase. In RT, however, you see it when you select any unit.

That happens about a third of the time for me. Also one third of the time the missile lands just behind the target. The last third of the time the missile hits the front of a tank, rather than the top, and doesn't knock it out.

Units in CMSF don't really have strong pathing. Just make waypoints around obstacles and along roads to keep vehicles on paths that you want. It also gives you the flexibility to add different cover arcs at places along the path. In Iron mode, all units are visible for selection when no units are selected. IMO it's almost a pointless feature of Iron mode, with the only real plus being that you can click on a unit and more easily see at a glance who is in C2. I still always play in Iron mode however, because of the more realistic (longer) fire support times. Hope that helps.

I've seen both enemy and friendly units attacked just outside the target perimeter. I just try not to get close to it!

I'm not sure what the various factions in the game with all modules included would amount to in that case. Maybe: -U.S. Army -U.S. Marines -Chinese Army -Chinese Marines -North Korean forces -South Korean forces -NATO forces and allies (Japan?, Australia?) -Russian forces -Various unconventional forces (North and South Korean nationalists, Chinese nationalists, Western Chinese Islamists, special forces, private contractor combatants) Those are the possibilities I can think of at the moment but how their inclusion would distribute among the the original game and modules would vary widely depending on the back story.

Well, I personally don't find the back story particularly important as long as everything on my computer screen is realistic, such as the TO&Es, environments, weapon effects, etc. Keep in mind that in CMSF a scenario designer could pit the U.S. Marines against the Dutch Army backed up by Syrian Uncons if he wants to. And then make a campaign out of it. CMSF2 could possibly have a back story that does not pit the U.S. Army against the Chinese Army head-to-head at all, but still include both, even if not in the beginning but through modules later. The original back story, like some people have said, could be China and/or the U.S. getting involved in a third country, like Korea. The U.S. and China would probably not realistically confront eachother convetionally head-on in that case, but the two beasts are certainly in the same game and a scenario designer could make his own wild campaign with them while CMSF2 successfully satisfies it's goal of providing more even Red and Blue sides.

If it can go from roughly even in 81 to vastly uneven a few years later, why can't it concievably go from vastly uneven to even in a few years? China is modernernizing their military fairly rapidly and have the economy to sustain it. Of course, CMSF2 should and likely will be limited to existing military equipment and OBs, both currently deployed (at the time of CMSF2 development) and scheduled for deployment in the near future. That said, if it's still conventionally uneven at the time there's only so much room to stretch.

IIRC the idea behind CMSF2 was to create a technologically "even" conventional match between red and blue forces, so that basically leaves China and Russia as possibilites for the "red" side, assuming "blue" is the U.S./NATO. The Pakistan situation is interesting, but in IMO an entire game based on a conflict there would be a lot like CMSF all over again with a few new units. That may not be a bad thing though because by the time CMSF2 rolls around I may have had my fix for an even match satisfied by CMBN and not mind basically doing CMSF1 over again with all the new evolutions that CMx2 will have taken by then.

The Brits have smaller squads (sections) and lots of lightly armoured vehicles that won't put out as much firepower as Bradleys or Strykers at your disposal in most scenarios. Therefore you are challenged to use your infantry more cautiously to locate enemy positions while positioning your light vehicles to provide fire support to smaller areas while limiting their exposure to other areas of the map. You are also challenged to use artillery more accurately because of the generally smaller amount of firepower in your on-map units compared to U.S. forces.

Perhaps if the time and will is still there on the part of Battlefront to add it in the next patch, a good solution is to allow large HE to detonate IEDs and mines. Mines may already be possible to detonate with HE IIRC, but I'm not sure. Hitting a known or highly probable IED location in CMSF with large HE, either from tanks or arty, could be a good workaround for the lack of engineers or EOD placing demo charges.

Because of a nuclear apocalypse that wipes out all conventional ground forces or because the U.S. would be capable of defeating China's ground forces with other means before invading?

Yup, but hopefully the existence of advanced fighters would at least allow for realistic scenarios with Red airpower against Blue forces without the "Chinese Airforce was wiped out in the opening stages of the war" situation, giving Blue air superiority for the entire campaign. With that said, it still wouldn't be realistic for BOTH sides to have CAS in the same scenario, as presumably, one side would have air superiority at that particular place and time.

Are you referring to the J-20? Looks fancy but it remains to be seen what it's capabilities and potential are. Both China and Russia are known to be developing stealth fighters, but I agree that at this time China looks more interesting as the "RED" side in CMSF2 mostly because of their greater economic growth than Russia's. More money = more spending on fancy toys and training.

Also, BMP-2 in the game fires 30mm AP which is less capable than APDS, like that fired from the BMP-3.

I don't believe that Battlefront would do this given that 7.62x54 is completely different ammo from 7.62x39. Even though they show up in the same bar it would be completely unrealistic to abstract it together to allow an AKM to fire 7.62x54. 5.56mm however, whether belted or in magazines, is the same round that can be fired from either an M256 or M4, so it isn't that bad to abstract it together IMO. I don't know if 7.62x39 unlinked ammo is abstracted with belted 7.62x39, used in the RPD, but I would assume it is.

Only 5.56mm, 5.45mm and pistol (9mm?) ammo goes in the first bar. All other non-grenade ammo goes in the second bar. It works ok as a graphical quick reference for ammo supply for Western forces, as you have all your rifle and LMG ammo in one bar and then either a single type of MG or sniper ammo in the other, but with Syrian forces you could have a mix of AKMs, AK-74s, sniper rifles and MGs in the same unit, with multipe types of ammo in the second bar and your overal assault rifle ammo split between the first and second bars.

With the sizes of the maps I think it's sometimes unavoidable to have reinforcements just appear within view, or sometimes right next to, your own forces, especially later in the mission when you might have your forces spread around the map. SPOILER There is a mission in the British campaign where you must escort some LMTV trucks to the other side of the map and at a certain point enemy uncon reinforcements will appear on three sides of the map simultaneously. My plan for this mission was to go around the left side, opposite side of the road from the buildings, and at the exact time I had my LMTVs in the gully, protected from spg-9s and rpgs from above, several uncon vehicles suddenly appeared all around my trucks with an ensuing point-blank firefight.

I often hear them cook off and then look around the map for a vehicle of mine that got hit by an RPG.

10km x 10km isn't something I'd expect to see any time soon, it would just be fun. For modern combat however, larger map sizes than what are currently generally seen in CMSF would be nice for mechanized and armored combat so that the effective ranges of weapons don't cover the entire map. Advanced optics on vehicles could be utilized better as well. Even a 4kmx4km map would prevent most ATGMs on one side from hitting recon vehicles on the other side. For missions in urban environments and complex terrain, smaller map sizes will always be ok because of the limits on engagement ranges and LOS. It doesn't really matter if you have plasma cannons with a 100km range.

Bigger maps would be nice to have in the modern setting because of the range and accuracy of weapons as well as optics. On a 10km x 10km map you couldnt just park an Abrams or Javelin team on top of the nearest hill and be able to blow up everything on the map from there. Vehicle maneuver would come into play more. Lightly armored recon units with advanced optics would have much more use because their optics could be used at a distance without bieng in danger of immediate destruction by an ATGM. I would like to see bigger maps in CMSFII, if possible.

Anything hitting the wall of a building on the same floor as troops in it seems to cause lots of casualties and suppression. The roof, however, counts a different floor and you could hit it with several 155mm shells in some cases and the troops on the floor below will be fine for the most part. That is what seems unrealistic to me as well as the building collapse issue, although I haven't had the latter happen enough for me to make many observations about it.

Could ammo be added to the fortifications like that shown in the screen with the 88? There could be one action spot in it where an infantry unit there can acquire ammo. It could be a special type of fortification available at setup, should the scenario designer include it.